Fig. 5

Overexpression of constitutively active AMPKα1 plasmid (caAMPKα1) mimics the inhibitory effect of HGF on the TGF-β1-induced myofibroblastic differentiation in tendon fibroblasts. a Typical cell morphology of control, vector transfected, and ca-AMPKa1 transfected tendon fibroblasts under stimulation by TGF-β1. b–e The mRNA levels of α-SMA (b), Col I α1 (c), Col III (d), and fibronectin (e) were measure by real-time quantitative PCR analysis; β-actin was used as a housekeeping gene for reference. All data were normalized to β-actin expression (2^−∆∆Ct methods). N = 8. *P < 0.05